A Canadian stand-up comic and writer living in London, England. I have a lot of stupid anxieties about the world. I don't believe in God but I do believe in ghosts, for example. That's hard to deal with. Read my irrational writings, judge me, whatever.

Tuesday, 29 May 2007

All I'm doing (all I have the energy for, really) is copying/pasting URLs.

There's a thing by some British guy or whatever called 'The Cult of the Amateur' or something, I dunno, I wasn't really paying attention, on how the internet is killing off culture... Well, I think in some ways, yeah, sure it is, but in other ways, when you consider who writes the blogs that actually get noticed and recognized, it's people with pretty good credentials - Huffington Post, AmericaBlog. (Hence my own lack of cyber-visibility).

Ann Coulter is my favourite comedian, but she needs to work on her delivery a little bit.

"Jerry Falwell was a perfected Christian. He exuded Christian love for all men, hating sin while loving sinners. This is as opposed to liberals, who just love sinners. Like Christ ministering to prostitutes, Falwell regularly left the safe confines of his church to show up in such benighted venues as CNN."

Seriously, how can anyone take that seriously? The comparison, if I have this right, is between Jesus ministering to prostitutes, and uh, Falwell sitting in a dressing room at a major television studio surrounded by the boxes of KFC and bottles of Babycham stipulated in his rider.

Thursday, 17 May 2007

This came up as I used the TFL Journey Planner website to find out how to get to my gig in Bethnal Green yesterday:

"ROMAN ROAD: Routes 8 and N8 are not serving Roman Road between Bethnal Green Station and Grove Road and route D6 is diverted in both directions between Cambridge Heath Road at Old Ford Road and Mile End Station due to the discovery of an unexploded WWII bomb at the junction with Bonner Street."

That's amazing.

Dear Mr Blair: While you say that Britain is the greatest nation on earth, you do realize this is like, totally a Third World country, right? The pound may be the strongest currency in the world but there are bombs under our feet, nothing works, water turns off, rats are everywhere and when I tried to get to Ladbroke Grove last night a twenty minute journey took me an hour and a half.

The only difference between London and that horrific post-apocalyptic version of Tokyo in Akira where yobs and giant monsters roam the streets freely is, uh, there's a river of garbage running through London.

Gotta love it.

++++

I did the gig in Bethnal Green for three people last night. There were more comics than there were audience members, but we had a blast. Rick, the compere bought them a round of drinks, we chatted, did some material, it was basically like a party where you get to talk about yourself lots (so, not that different to most parties, then).

Monday, 7 May 2007

Does anyone remember that episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where Will and Carlton are at university and they try to join this black fraternity? The fraternity thinks Will is cool enough, but Carlton is far too privileged and upper-middle class to be part of their little 'pay-to-have-friends' society (because essentially, that's what frats are), which is taken to be read as 'Carlton, you ain't black enough fo' Phi Beta Alpha' (or whatever it actually is).

So, here we are at the climax of the episode, and Carlton overhears the frat president trash-talking him to Will, and he has a very moving, very inspirational speech, one line of which resounds in my ears to this very day:

"We both running the same race, so why you tripping me up?"

I like the active metaphor implicit in 'race' and 'running,' but I don't understand why Carlton has put on a fake black-cent to deliver this speech. Surely that just proves the point the fraternity was making in the first place.

****Commisserations to Segolene Royal, who lost the French election Sunday (I can relate, I left my sunglasses on the bus this weekend). Pity. I really liked her and I do hope we see great things from her in the future. Here's a fun fact: you know, in France, they call her 'Royal with cheese.'

Tuesday, 1 May 2007

#1: Alright, Brandon?* How are you?#2: Ok.#1: Haven't seen you around lately. #2: I've been going in the mornings.#1: (pause) God, I love all this sunshine.#2: Yeah.#1: I've just been hanging around outside, all day. #2: Yeah.#1: Don't you love it?#2: Just a few minutes I was walking down the street and these bits were getting in my eyes, you know, just bits of pollen and stuff flying in my eyes. And I have quite bad hayfever, so I went to the sink to wash my eyes out. And then I looked up in the mirror, and as it turns out, it wasn't pollen or dust or bits of debris at all! It was a fucking fly, with its wings stuck to my cornea, and its legs twitching its last death throes against my eyelids!

(a long pause)

#1: Your traps are looking good -#2: It's been a shitty day.

*Some names have been changed.

****

I was looking up hayfever cures from Japan on the internet today, because they have some of the worst allergy symptoms in the world due to foreign trees being planted post-war. This kid's testimonial makes me angry like nothing else in this world:

Hiroyasu, 26

"I have never suffered from hay fever, so I can't understand or imagine how people who do get it, feel. I wouldn't know what to do if I became allergic to pollen someday since no one in my family has such an allergy. I hope I never have that problem because people with those goggles and masks look weird and suspicious."

Thanks for your sensitivity. I won't hesitate to point out, "Hiroyasshole," that you seem to be wearing a high school uniform at the age of TWENTY-SIX. I call that "suspicious", don't you?

About Me

post-apocalyptic comedy

Broderick Chow is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, he's kept the stupid-sounding accent but now makes his home in London, UK. He's a trained actor with appearances as varied as Vietnamese Gang Member #2 in Jake 2.0 (WB) to Vietnamese Commissar Thuy in Miss Saigon. Apologies to any potential Vietnamese fan-base, uh, he isn't. As a comic he's played a lot of clubs including Downstairs at the King's Head, Laughing Horse, Mirth Control, Pear Shaped and Monkey Business.

Come see him take on a wide variety of intelligent and challenging topics in an incredibly ignorant way - it's the end of times, man.